NEW YORK school does what??
WOW!!! A school in New York city, known as the Active Learning Elementary School has made the move to serve vegetarian meals to their students 5 DAYS A WEEK! It is the FIRST public school in America to have taken this initiative in order to actively encourage healthy eating amongst their young students.
Back in 2008, the school’s principal noticed that students were bringing pre-packed lunches that were vegetarian. The school then decided to go vegetarian 3 days of the week. They tried different varieties of vegetarian food, e.g. BBQ-flavoured tofu, vegetarian chilli… and there was positive feedback. The students were enjoying the food! They then decided to serve vegetarian meals 4 days a week… and there was again, positive feedback!
As of the beginning of this month, Active Learning Elementary School has decided to serve vegetarian meals only! Students are still allowed to bring their own pre-packed lunches that contains meat… It is not strictly a vegetarian school, but the teachers believe that a veggie-based diet creates a better learning environment and a healthier upbringing!
The school’s principal Bob Groff hopes that his school will inspire others in the state to do the same. He believes that children can think better if they have a good and healthy meal. Imagine… there are approximately 397 children, ranging from Pre-school to 3rd Grade that are enrolled in this elementary school. They are all eating healthy, vegetarian food everyday!
This initiative to introduce a vegetarian diet to children from a young age is extremely beneficial not only for their health, but it also educates children subtly on animal rights and teaches them how to care for other sentient beings.
It teaches them not treat animals like life stock. It is important for us to teach our children from young to live their life environmental-friendly and respectful to all animals.
I hope to see more schools follow in the footsteps of Active Learning Elementary School!
Tsem Rinpoche
New York School goes all-vegetarian
By Brittany Brandy, CNN | May 2, 2013
Students at the Active Learning Elementary School in Queens check out the cafeteria salad bar
New York (CNN) — Asked which school meals were their favorites, students at a public school in the New York borough of Queens don’t say chicken fingers or meatballs. Instead, they name rice and kidney beans, black bean quesadillas or tofu with Chinese noodles.
“Whoever thought they would hear a third-grader saying that they liked tofu and Chinese noodles?” asked Dennis Walcott, New York City schools chancellor.
Walcott was at the Active Learning Elementary School this week to celebrate its move to all-vegetarian meals five days a week. The school of nearly 400 students, from pre-kindergarten to third grade, was founded five years ago on the principle that a healthy lifestyle leads to strong academic achievement.
“We decided on a vision where health and nutrition would be a part of educating the whole child,” school principal Bob Groff said.
The school’s focus on healthier meals began three years ago when Groff noticed a majority of students were bringing their own vegetarian meals. The school went meatless three days a week about a year and a half ago. It also tested meals on a small group of students, gathering feedback and changing the menu accordingly.
Active Learning’s student body may be more accustomed to vegetarian diets than most, with 85% of the students being Asian and another 10% Hispanic, said Margie Feinberg, spokeswoman for the New York Department of Education.
“Rice was a staple of many of their home foods,” Groff said of the students.
Study: Too much red meat may shorten life span (http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/12/health/red-meat-shorten-lifespan/index.html)
The vegetarian program expanded to four days a week last spring but reverted back to three days when the U.S. Department of Agriculture changed its requirements for protein per serving in the fall, he said.
The school worked closely with the city’s education department food program to ensure menu items met USDA standards. It officially went all-vegetarian in January.
“We’ve been working with tofu for a few months,” Groff said. At first, the tofu was served as a seasonless block; now, smaller pieces of barbeque-flavored, oven roasted tofu are served with noodles. That, Groff said, “changes how the kids perceive it.”
Other options might include roasted chickpeas, vegetarian chili and brown rice, or falafel, the city Department of Education said in a statement.
Students appear to be enthusiastic about their healthy meals.
“When you’re healthy, you can do better on tests and you can fight more diseases,” student Nick Lin told CNN affiliate NY1.
Following the announcement this week, Groff said he was welcomed into a PTA meeting with roaring applause.
He told parents the children may still bring whatever meal they like for lunch.
But “the vegetarian menu fits right in with our mission, and we are thrilled that our students in pre-kindergarten all the way up to grade three understand the importance of healthy and nutritious meals,” Groff said in a statement.
New York schools — which provide meals for 1.1 million students daily — offer principals vegetarian and nonvegetarian lunch options. Groff worked closely with the department so that the menu changes came at no additional cost to the school.
He hired a school parent as a vegetarian chef to develop the menu and described his school as the vegetarian test kitchen for the city. One original recipe, called “Malini’s Curry Chickpeas” after the school’s chef, was offered as an option in schools across the city on Earth Day, he said.
The department hopes other schools will consider going vegetarian.
“As far as we know, (Active Learning) is the only public school in the nation that offers an all-vegetarian menu,” Feinberg said.
The animal products in your medicine cabinet (http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/27/the-animal-products-in-your-medicine-cabinet/)
Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/02/health/new-york-vegetarian-school
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It is great initiative to introduce vegetarian meals to students and to the elementary schools. It is our responsibility to provide healthy food for children and important to start when they are young. Hopefully more schools will adopt this method and create awareness of healthy living.
Great initiative taken by the head of the school to introduce vegetarian meals in school. There’s no doubt that well planned vegetarian diet bring a lot of benefit to the body and in the long run benefits our ecological system too. When children from as young as preschoolers adopt the habit of eating vegetarian food they will most likely continue to do so throughout their lives.
For those who are used to a meat diet from very young may find it harder to change and adapt to a vegetarian diet. It’s not impossible but it’s just harder to do so.
As with most things we are creatures of habits. It’s best to have the Wisdom to adopt the right habits in life in order to reduce our risks of incurring bad karma and having to face the difficult consequences thereafter.
Kudos to the school and it’s management team . Hope it will inspire more schools to follow suit.
Dear Rinpoche,
Thank you for sharing this. It is good to see a school had realise the benefits of serving vegetarian food in their cafeteria. I am sure they had put a lot of effort into the vegetarian meals for the kids to actually like eating them. This school will cultivate a bunch of health conscious kids and raise the awareness of parents on the benefits of being vegetarian. This school had set a good example and hopefully other school will follow its footsteps.
Humbly,
Chris CHong
wow, i like to read things like this because i feel good inside to know that other people are saving lives. i am a vegetarian and it is healthier and saves lives. i am so happy t know about this school. thank you for sharing Rinpoche.
非常值得分享，我国学校更应该学习！现在的学校食堂都是一些快餐，要不然都是一些油腻的食物。现在的小学生都有过胖的情况。如果学校配合推出多蔬菜果类是最好的。小孩吃了父母也比较比较安心。
This is really great to know! I enjoyed myself a lot while reading the article, I think that it’s something that we should feel proud of. The kids are starting to be vegetarians while they are young, and I think that when they grow up, they sure will inspire more to become one. Thank You for sharing Rinpoche.
Most children hate vegetables and its nice to know that the children from Active Learning actually enjoyed eating vegetables.This school sets a good example and I hope more schools will follow this concept. Most likely all these children will grow up to be vegetarian for life and they in turn will teach the next generation to be vegetarian too.
Thank you Rinpoche sharing this Good News . Very nice that educate to be vegetarian when is kid , sharing to them that eat meat will shorten their life and killing more and more animals . May this good news spread around this world and more peoples pay attention on eat vegetable.
amazing how the school authority take into consideration the well being of the students health, beside than providing education. The school is not only providing healthy vegetarian food, but what they are doing indirectly, they are implanting loving kindness and meat free diet to the school children. Awesome!!
A civilised country was measured by how animals were treated. I think a real advanced country also can be seen from how they feed their kids. 🙂 What kind of education on life and the surroundings to our kids. I wish to have a school and more schools like this that put the “real” food on children’s plate. Healthy kids, kids that aware and love their surroundings, I believe will always be the smart kids.
Amazing! I want to send my kids to that school! Such a wonderful and brilliant idea to have vegetarian meals for the children. And what I love the most is for them to be able to educate those kids while they are young. And not only that, they actually find ways to improve the cooking so that the children will like and enjoy their meal. Who said vegetarian meals are boring and unhealthy? Treating the kids to be compassionate and understand that animals were not put here on earth for us to treat them as food. I really hope that this move will encourage more schools to have vegetarian meals for their students.
When reading this article, it reminded me of my childhood days, I hate vege till the max when I was young, eating vege is as bad as killing me. Meat was my best option for food. Whenever I saw my mum cooking lots of vege, in my mind was: I’m dead this time. Now when I think back, it is sad I’m having those kind of thought, I’m not blaming the school or anyone, but most of the schools in here are lacking of education on this subject, if we got such systems in school, many of our thought towards vegetarian would be much different. It is always good to educate them when they are still young and help them cultivate this thinking.
This is really a great act of the schools, serving vegetarian food and educate the kids of healthy food. The function of school is a place to provide knowledge to the students, so knowledge to have a better lifestyle is also very important.
I’ve just did a little research on the internet, I found this site which saying Human are not born to eat meat, reason being as below:
——————————————————————
Meat Eaters-Lack flat molar teeth for grinding, but possess sharp front teeth for grinding flesh
Herbivores- Lack sharp front teeth, but possess flat rear molars for grinding
Humans-Lack sharp front teeth,but possess flat rear molars 4 grinding
Meat Eaters-Have an intestinal tract that’s only 3 times their body length, so that quickly decaying meat may quickly pass through
herbivores-Have an intestinal tract 10-12times their own body length
Humans-Have an intestinal tract 10-12 times their own body length
Meat Eaters- Have Claws
Herbivores- No claws
Humans- No claws
Meat Eaters- Have strong hydrochloric acid in stomach to digest meat
Herbivores-Have stomach acid 20 times weaker than a meat eater
Humans- have stomach acid 20 times weaker than a meat eater
Meat Eaters-have no skin pores and perspire thought the tongue
Herbivores- perspire thought the pores located on the skin
Humans- perspire thought the pores located on the skin
and more from the link below:
http://socyberty.com/lifestyle-choices/humans-are-not-physically-created-to-eat-meat/
This news is surprising but very welcome! America is now associated with the city of fast food and steaks… and for an entire school to turn vegetarian is certainly great news. Children are easily influenced and by making vegetarian food the ‘norm’, we will start a new generation of vegetarians who do not think it difficult to be vegetarian. Most of the adults I know need to rehabituate themselves to eating vegetables and hanker after meat. I also know some parents who complain that their children don’t like meat and only want to eat vegetables. And they force their kids to eat meat!! Our society is built on such perverse values – not deliberately of course, but out of ignorance. By realising the vegetarian food is healthy and compassionate, hopefully more parents would be open to have vegetarian food at home and encourage it in other schools. Well done the school board of Active Learning Elementary School for being such a pioneer!
This is just awesome! I hope my school does that too. The children were brought up with eating a lot of vegetables since young, so I believe that it will not be a tough thing for them to become vegetarians after that. And it’s also great that the school had been receiving positive feed backs from the parents as this will encourage the school and also the students to eat more vegetables then meat. This is a very interesting article to read!
Thank You for sharing Rinpoche.
Finally! A school starting this would spark interest and inspiration into other schools also opting for a vegetarian menu. Vegetarianism has been growing ever since people became aware of the cruelty behind it. It is amazing how a school in america, where most children had been brought up to eat only fast food, is actually quite unexpected that it would have started from here. Im glad the principal took the initiative to go through so many tests to finally come up with a vegetarian menu for the Elementary school. More and more children these days are beginning to be aware of what is placed on their plate and its better to start at an early young age to be vegetarian. Im very happy for this new spark of brilliance and hope to see more schools offer a vegetarian meals. Thank you for sharing this Rinpoche, this is really good news!
wow, i thank these people, number 1 id doesn’t harm any animals and number 2 it is completely healthy and the students in New York like it and this school is amazing to do this and it does improve your body. ever since i became vegetarian i felt and performed better. keep it up guys!!!!!!
It just starts with one and hopefully the rest will follow. This school is setting a good example to all other schools in USA. Not only they provide healthy food to the students, they also reduces the killing of animals. Imagine everyday, there are 400 students eating no meat and that quantity does make a difference. Animal lives are spared from the school canteen.
Great news! It’s really nice that they start serving vegetarian food to these children. It is after all best to educate the future generation since they’re young for healthy eating and what more, for them to appreciate the value of animal lives as well.
I hope more schools will adapt this type of diet for their students.
It’s a good news. Wish there will have more schools to provide vegetable lunch in more cities.
Dear Rinpoche,
WOW!!! Now that is something that’s super cool!
Woah, This piece of new has gotten me lost for words….. I totally did not expect such a cool thing to happen in an School like this!
It is great that people like the school Principle are wanting it’s students to appreciate animals and not take it as just life stock.
To me it is a really good idea to promote vegetarianism in a school because it is not only a good, healthy idea but also a idea that would teach children to appreciate animals as well as teach the children to love animals and for me I really hope that at least some of these students will realize how much animals suffer for our food and continue to be vegetarians for life…. even after they finish school.
I hope that more and more schools around the world will soon serve only vegetarian meals.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing!
Love
Jutika
Wow! What an interesting school. This school should be an example to all citizens of the world! It is great to hear that there was positive feedback from the students. My school has a vegetarian section and it is one of the more popular sections too!
That is great! I hope our schools in Malaysia serves vegetarian food as well. 🙂
“Whoever thought they would hear a third-grader saying that they liked tofu and Chinese noodles?” asked New York City school’s chancellor, Dennis Walcott. Yes, it’s truly amazing to find a school in Queens adopting a vegetarian menu for its elementary school kids simply because its kids were already bringing vegetarian food to school.
Let’s hope this starts a wave of elementary schools adopting a vegetarian menu too. It’s not just a question of ensuring the health of these school kids. Over and above this, it’s a skillful way of teaching people, from young, to respect the lives of animals, to respect their rights and to love and care for them. Children must be taught how to reach out directly to these furry beings, with care and love;and to not want to harm or kill them for food, directly or indirectly (especially when these furry beings cannot voice out their thoughts, hopes and fears).
WOW What A School! Dear Rinpoche, It’s so good to hear the students loves vegetarian food, because that will reduce meat eaten and that is a very good news for the animals. Being a vegetarian is not only about cutting down meat. Being a vegetarian also make your body become stronger and healthier. I wish more schools will provide more vegetarian food.